As for now, let’s have a look at this ten and see what kind of art-house-meets-popcorn-films these titles have to offer…

#30Twelve Years a SlaveTBA

Steve McQueen has proven to be an immense talent with his first two films — Hunger and Shame. He’s also a director unafraid to make the audience uncomfortable with a visceral sense of realism. He’s a director whose films have become required viewing any year they’re released and 12 Years a Slave features a cast and a story that continues that trend.

Twelve Years a Slave is based on the 1853 autobiography written by Solomon Northup, a New York citizen who was kidnapped in Washington in 1841 and rescued from a cotton plantation in Louisiana in 1853.

Chiwetel Ejiofor will play Northup, who regained his freedom after Samuel Bass, a Canadian carpenter who opposed slavery, smuggled letters to Northup’s wife, Anne Hampton (Kelsey Scott), ultimately starting the legal process to earn him back his freedom.

Michael Fassbender starred in McQueen’s previous two films and here he’ll play Edwin Epps, the film’s chief villain, a cruel plantation owner with whom Northup spends a significant portion of his 12 years in bondage (source).

It feels a little weird to go from something like a Steve McQueen feature to a farcical Michael Bay movie, but such is the world of cinema and my taste as I really can’t wait to see what this film has to offer. No, I don’t watch trailers so I have no idea what exactly the below video tells me about the movie, but the idea of Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson playing a pair of criminal bodybuilders involved in an extortion ring and a kidnapping plot and told through the ADD lens of Michael Bay is something I want to see.

The film is based on a 1999 Miami New Times article and along with Johnson and Wahlberg the cast includes Ed Harris, Tony Shalhoub, Anthony Mackie, Rob Corddry, Tony Plana, Ken Jeong, Bar Paly and the reliably funny Rebel Wilson.

It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea and there is a strong chance it will be awful, but anticipation is about “want,” which doesn’t always lead to the best decisions.